Friday, Jan. 25: Whether to donate a goat still raising doubts

My gawd, what have I done? A few weeks ago our walking group donated monies which we raised among ourselves, to donate toward one of our members’ charities. It is a charity in Africa which, among other deeds, builds schools and provides goats to those who need them.

As we had not raised enough money for the former, I chose the latter and asked that two goats be purchased and named after members of our group, “Sammy” and “Ruthie.”

So help me, I did not realize that by so doing we were ruining the ecology and encouraging animal cruelty. It just goes to prove the adage “no good deed will go unpunished.”

GERALD LECOVIN

Vancouver

Having lived in Africa for a large portion of my life, I have seen goats placed upon a table in the open market in preparation for having their throats slit. The blood flows into an open sewer.

I have seen goats in the back seat of cars, on the roof of buses, and crammed into pickup trucks.

I would certainly not want to encourage animal husbandry, especially when there are so many viable alternative agricultural development projects available to feed the nation.

Goats are a foraging species and will destroy the bark of fruit trees and in drought areas are faced with feed shortages and internal parasites.

Raising animals is not the most sustainable agricultural method.

KARL LOSKEN

North Vancouver

Outsourcing transcription of medical records poses risks

I’ve been a hospital medical transcriptionist for almost 15 years. I take great pride in the quality of work I produce.

A portion of our in-house work is outsourced to a private-for-profit company in Ottawa. The in-house transcriptionists are responsible for editing and correcting these outsourced reports in addition to transcribing our own dictations for about 10,000 medical personnel in the Lower Mainland.

Some of the mistakes I have seen by the outsourced workers are inexcusable — wrong patient, wrong diagnosis, wrong medication, etc. These can be life-threatening errors.

As an in-house MT, I have access to physicians, clinics and electronic medical records — on secure Internet servers in a secure office environment. This access is imperative for verifying information in the reports I transcribe to ensure accuracy and privacy.

Now, Providence Health Care is contracting out all of our jobs to another private company, also employing home-based contract workers.

Who will edit these highly sensitive medical reports once the work is outsourced 100 per cent?

These workers will not have the internal access that we in-house MTs do.

We deal with patients’ private information with safeguards in place. But when this work is done by home-based workers on laptops and home computers, how can we guarantee there won’t be a security breach or whether quality assurance for accuracy is in place?

As a B.C. citizen, I know I wouldn’t want someone typing my medical reports on their home computer. Work is being taken away from British Columbians who pay taxes in this province.

Last year, $10 million was spent on outsourcing medical transcription in the Lower Mainland alone. So, where are the savings? And at what cost — the integrity of patient reports and their personal information?

The film industry has always been able to colourfully and dramatically extract undue bounty from governments and investors.

As Cultural Development Minister Bill Bennett considers which “iron in the fire” he will lavish on the industry, I hope he keeps in mind Samuel Bronfman Sr.’s comment when he learned his son had purchased an expensive share of a film studio: “Edgar, there are cheaper ways to get laid!”

I share many of the same frustrations about CFL’s as expressed by Stephen Hume in his front-page article.

I have not tried dimmable CFLs but am not surprised that they don’t work: Fluorescent bulbs are not designed to work that way.

Also, use with timers is not recommended (according to the package instructions) because they either won’t work or will suffer from reduced life. There goes my security lighting!

Have you ever dropped one while taking it to the designated return facility?

What do you do with that mess of spilled mercury and glass?

On the positive side, I have had reasonably long life out of the bulbs, though not always. I change all the light bulbs at our church in Tsawwassen and my workload has dropped considerably now that many of the bulbs are CFLs.

Of particular note, four outdoor floodlights which I used to have to change twice a year (from an extension ladder) have lasted over five years. These are on a photocell so they are on all night, every day of the year.

One other problem I discovered with CFLs is electrical noise. I am not able to use my hearing aid in the “T” or telephone position with our hearing assistance system at the church because of the electrical noise from the CFLs.

This is a real problem for people with hearing aids.

DON CHRISTIE

Delta

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A Radio-Canada reporter has been arrested for alleged criminal harassment while pursuing the subject of a story. According to Radio-Canada, reporter Antoine Trépanier was arrested Tuesday night by Gatineau police. He was released on a promise to appear in court. Trépanier was called by Gatineau police Tuesday evening and an officer requested that he come […]

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